First, probably because I'm a writer and have an overactive imagination, I pictured editors in NY clinking champagne glasses with the toast, "The ebook bubble is bursting, thank Gutenberg, and soon we'll be able to get back to what we do best; selling paper."

I realize that reporters and writers of the news have to attribute meaning to numbers, and that hooks and spin are necessary to make facts interesting. But the way PW prefaced these numbers, and called the article "E-Book Growth Slows" gives me a pretty good idea what their focus is. PW serves the publishing industry. The publishing industry is very uncomfortable about ebooks. Here's a nice fact to ease the publishing industry's collective mind.

Except it's a myopic, self-absorbed, and flat-out misleading fact.

This shows that ebook growth has slowed for 14 REPORTING PUBLISHERS.

That doesn't mean ebook growth is slowing for Amazon, B&N, Smashwords, or the tens of thousands of indie authors self-publishing.

My numbers have been steadily climbing for 21 months, and in the last six weeks I made $26,000.

Yesterday, I mentioned Amanda Hocking, who is selling 1200 ebooks a day.

PW or AAP didn't poll any of these writers and ask if their growth was slowing down. They certainly didn't ask me.

And these authors I listed aren't the only ones with growing sales--I'm just too lazy to gather more info. If you're an indie author who sold more than 1000 ebooks in November, post in the comments section and I'll add you to the list.

But then, indie sales don't amount to much, right? After all, 1000 ebooks a month isn't a lot. Not compared to what Big NY Publishing does.

Actually...

Whiskey Sour, by all counts my highest selling and most successful books, has sold 60,000 copies since 2004. That means it has averaged 770 copies a month since its debut.

1000 copies a month seems pretty damn good to me.

But then, these are indie authors. It's not like there are any professional authors jumping on this Kindle bandwagon. Except for maybe:

I met Leslie at a writing convention in New Orleans, and we traded stories about how we'd gotten screwed in our careers, which lead to me talking about ebooks.

If you look at the cover (designed by my cover artist, Carl Graves at Extended Imagery), you'd think this is her newest Big NY Print Release.

Nope. Ms. Banks is self-pubbing this one, just in time for Xmas, for $3.99. You can buy it on Kindle HERE.

So... perhaps there is a reason ebook sales are slowing for those 14 publishers mentioned in PW.

Perhaps sales are slowing because more readers are buying indie books. Or because more professional writers are going indie. Or because publishers are too self-absorbed to notice anything happening outside of the insular world they've built for themselves.

But what do I know? I'm an outlier.

Here's a fun game, though. You know the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon meme? We can also play the Six Degrees of JA Konrath with self-pubbed Kindle authors.

Of the names I listed in the blog, I'm one degree of separation from at least 80% of them. The rest, I'm probably second degree.

You hear that, NY Publishing? You truly want to slow the growth of ebooks?

Shut me up.

I'm willing to be bought off. Pass around a collection envelope, like you do for employee birthdays. For a million bucks, I promise I'll never blog about ebooks, or help another writer, ever again.